Ball with mechanical sound system

To play tennis, visually impaired persons use a ball with bells to indicate where is the ball. The problem with the current ball is that there is a sound only when the ball touches the floor. So the goal of the project is to design an entire mechanical system that produces a sound in continuous way. The new system should not disturb the way the ball acts.

The project is in collaboration with a French association for visually impaired person persons: UNADEV based in Lyon.

Test bench for load cell with micro-millinewton measurements

The project focuses on designing and assembling the test bench, for a new load cell that is being developed in a joined project of Instant Lab and the industrial partner. The load cell will be designed for measuring wide ranges of forces (micro-millinewtons), with maximum precision, due to the stiffness tuning mechanism. The goal of the project is to develop a test bench allowing to calibrate and characterize the prototype within given specification.

Electronic inclinometer

The goal of the project is to work on the functionalities of the electrical inclinometer prototype developed at Instant-Lab. This device can measure precisely its position in 3 angular coordinates. Within the work, the reference system has to be developed. Thanks to such referencing, the relative angles between two given positions could be measured. The solution should be intuitive and handy.

Flexure-based seismograph

The goal of the project is to design a two degree-of-freedom seismograph using the oscillators developed at Instant lab. These oscillators have a high quality factor due to the flexure technology used, which leads to a high sensitivity to external vibrations. There is a demand for seismographs to monitor buildings during or after an earthquake, which are more simple and less expensive than the instruments currently used. This project could lead to promising solutions in terms of sensitivity and cost-effectiveness.

Rehabilitation insole for progressive weight application

This mechatronics project is focused on the design of an insole for the rehabilitation of a broken leg or an sprained ankle. When the patient is once again capable of walking, he/ she must progressively increase the weight exerted to the broken structure in order to recover faster and better. Nevertheless, the patient is not able to monitor the applied weight without a force sensor. For this reason, the proposed insole will not only reduce the stiffness of the gait but also measure the force exerted by each leg and render it to the patient mobile phone. At the end, the patient will have a complete system which will warn him/ her against an excess of weight application.

This project is developed with the collaboration of medical partners.

Project consists of :

Continue the development of the mobile application, which monitors forces and interacts with patient and/or medical staff, in iOS/Swift.

Design the communication by bluetooth LE between the mobile phone and the microcontroller.

Export, store and import data from a remote sever to the mobile phone.

Required background / interest :

Motivated and self-governing.

Programming skills in Swift.

Kwonledge of Bluetooth Low Energy.

Basic electronics and microcontroller programming.

Location : Microcity, NeuchâtelSections : SMT IMT or other interestedContact email : Please send CV in English or French to marine.clogenson@epfl.ch

Test and calibration of a nanoforce sensor

A new generation of sensor for biological application has been developed and manufactured out of glass. This very sensitive sensor aims at measuring force in the nanonewton range and therefore is using compliant structures. Next step consists in the solution evaluation and validation. For this project, a test bench should be designed and realized.

Watchmaking assembly at the millimetre scale

This project is a study of watch component assembly at the millimetre scale using new techniques from MEMS and innovative materials. This project also requires a study of the difficulties involved at the interfaces between new and traditional components. This project could have direct applications to the watch industry.

Flexure based surgical tool

Growing life expectancy goes together with improvement of healthcare. New threatment methods are becoming less invasive, allowing for shorter recovery time. Following this trend we would like to propose a new micro-surgical tool.

Project will focus on development of flexible structure for flexture based surgical tool. It will allow for 2DoF of rotations. End effector integrated in such flexure will be a gripper, or other depending on medical application.

Whole structure should be open for either manual or robotic actuation.

Flexure based tool improvement for reduced fingers strength

People with certain neurological pathologies such as MS, ALS or cerebral stroke have often difficulties to manipulate tools that require a voluntary extension (opening) of the hand such as scissors or pliers.

The goal of this project is to develop a mechanism that can be added to any of these tools to simplify their manipulation. Fist prototypes will be realized using the lab’s 3D printer and laser cutter as well as external resources.

Force/displacement transducer using flexible structures

This project focuses on development of force sensors for surgical applications. It requires different kinematics, sizes and force ranges depending on application. Goal of this project would be to develop such a transducer for one of them using flexible structures.

Micro-Torque test bench validation

Recently conducted master project lead to development of micro-torque measurement bench. Main application would be to measure the torque of bearings used in watchmaking. Within this project student will validate the test-bench, perform measurements, evaluate the test bench an propose improvements in the design.

"In order to most assuredly produce a machine for measuring time [...] there must be a combination of Invention, of Theory, of Workmanship and of the Art of Experience." Traite des Horloges Marines (1773) by Ferdinand Berthoud, Clockmaker to the King (born Neuchatel, Switzerland,1727).